Monday, July 16, 2007

VITTER OBVIOUSLY MISUNDERSTANDS THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN PERSONAL FORGIVENESS AND POLITICAL FORGIVENESS

VITTER IN THE SOUP WITH "BROTHEL" ALLEGATIONS

(CHICAGO)(July 17, 2007) Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana has a problem: he likes brothels and prostitutes. He should resign and return to private life before he further embarrasses the Republican Party.

Vitter obviously continues to bogus-up the public with his latest "family values" news conference nonsense.

Now no one is perfect, least among us me (full disclosure: there are no prostitutes in my past). But there is a wide chasm between personal failings and public hypocrisy. Vitter is entitled to the freedom to patronize prostitutes and to do just about anything else his wife will tolerate. But he can't stand tall before the people of either Louisiana or the United States while engaging in such behavior.

The fact that Vitter claims "God" has forgiven him in the pubic arena has no bearing on whether he is entitled to forgiveness in the public arena. There us a very big disconnect between divine forgiveness and public forgiveness.

If I remember correctly one of the sins Jesus rails against is hypocrisy ("Let he among you who has not sinned…," etc.). Jesus constantly harangues hypocrites. And Vitter is a world-class hypocrite, campaigning on high moral standards while walking the mean streets of New Orleans in search of poon tang.

Bill Clinton is no excuse for Vitter to stay in office either. Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about his sexual proclivities. Vitter was throwing stones then.

Vitter's claim that he can preach "family values" while practicing something entirely different is an insult to our intelligence. Vitter did not have a one-night indiscretion in an otherwise exemplary career. Rather, like Bill Clinton, Vitter appears to have been extremely adept at concealing his sexual indiscretions and addiction.

I worked on Capital Hill and I know how young lovelies throw themselves at senators and representatives. It's pathetic. But if they are giving it away in the Capitol why is Vitter out buying the stuff from a madam? Therein lies the fallacy of his conduct. We can all understand momentary temptation; temptation is all around us. But it is hard to understand a chronic pattern of patronizing commercial sex.

Tom Roeser, an Illinois conservative, has speculated on his blog [http://www.tomroeser.com] that former Senator Fred Thompson is delaying an announcement for president because his minions are out trying to cap "bimbo eruptions" before Fred becomes a candidate. I have no idea. But the fact that someone such as Roeser sees suspicious circumstances is reason to pause. Will Thompson disappoint? We'll have to wait and see.

Vitter's refusal to answer questions about his psychological problems is a sure sign there is more out there. Maybe this is a case for Jackie Mason, the Broadway comedian who thinks that wives should go to jail when husbands patronize prostitutes [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkusHBjGp7c]. Somehow that might not play very well with the family values crowd either.

In the end, Vitter should resign to spare us more hypocrisy and more embarrassment at the national level. There is no easy answer to his personal problems but there is an easy solution for his public hypocrisy. Resign. At least he'll make the girls on Bourbon Street happy. Before he goes back to the streets, however, Vitter should read "One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding", a 1960's novel by Robert Gover.

(CHICAGO)(July 12, 2007) Thomas L. Friedman is better known than I am. And, I am envious to say, he is better paid. But he is not a better analyst. Unfortunately for Friedman he bears the burden of being an “Israel supporter.” I do not.

Friedman’s dilemma is a tragic example of how a pro-Israel point of view corrupts both the analyst and his analysis.

Friedman’s dilemma also illustrates why diplomacy and law, and intelligence, continue to be valuable careers in the Internet age. Good lawyers, good diplomats and good intelligence analysts have to sometimes tell us what we do not want to hear.

In 2002, pro-Israel organizations did not want to hear that invading Iraq would be a disaster for Israel. Mr. Friedman marched in lockstep with the lobby and supported the invasion. Now he has to eat his words.

Occasionally someone will accuse me of being “anti-Israel.” Not true. I just don’t have a dog in the Middle East mess. I am impartial and I view the region from one perspective and only one perspective: the United States interest. Refreshingly, my impartial views often turn out to be pro-Israel not because I am biased but simply because I am impartial.

I am preparing a series of my pre-war and Baghdad columns for publication in a book. As I revisit 2002-2003 I am struck at how my views on what was “good for the Jews” turned out to be more correct than Mr. Friedman’s, who was analyzing the situation from a “good for the Jews” perspective.

It was clear to me that if the United States deposed Saddam Hussein, Israel would suffer catastrophic long-term losses. I viewed Saddam as an irritant for Israel, not a threat. The U. S. policy of containment was ridiculed and riddled with European evasions, but the policy was working. And cheap. It cost few lives and chump change to patrol the skies over Iraq.

Then we invaded. Let me be clear on one point. I do not blame pro-Israel Americans or Israelis for the Iraq invasion. I blame President Bush. He was, as he claims, the “decider-in-Chief.” And made a bad decision. For the United States. And for Israel.

Long after the Iraq invasion had become a fiasco Mr. Friedman was still writing that there was a ray of hope for success. Perhaps he was afraid to confront the realty of what he had supported: a policy that would cost Israel incalculable damage over the long term.

Four years after the invasion, Hamas and HizbAllah are stronger and better armed, and Iran—well don’t ask. Iran needs a war to draw attention from the failed economy and failed dictatorship. That is why the Persian leadership cackles when Israel threatens to attack. I am sure the ayatollahs silently pray “make my day.”

President Bush, Mr. Friedman and Israel traded an irritant, and an irritant who was focused on restraining Iranian power—for an exponential growth in Iranian power and greater instability in the region. And still the Israelis claim they are better off because of the invasion. Ehud Olmert has repeatedly stated that Israel benefited from the invasion, see http://www.uruknet.web.at.it/colonna-centrale-pagina.php?p=m28475&size=1&hd=0&l=x

If consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, there is a very small mind inside Mr. Olmert.

And so, gradually, grudgingly, Mr. Friedman has come to the conclusion that to save itself, the United States must announce a date to cut-and-run in Iraq.

And, once again brandishing his support for Israel like a terrible swift sword, Mr. Freidman admonishes—or is it advocates?—that if we cut-ad-run in Iraq “we will be much freer to hit Iran—should we ever need to—once we’re out.” http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/opinion/11friedman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fThomas%20L%20Friedman

Mr. Friedman is advocating that we withdraw from Iraq so we can be “freer’ to attack Iran.

Now where is that policy coming from?

In forthcoming columns I will outline my views of the current situation in Iraq. But I can be very clear and very succinct about Friedman’s, and Israel’s, suggestion that we should prepare to attack Iran. Suicidal. For the United States.

I think the American people are fed up with invading countries because newspaper columnists think it will benefit us and benefit Israel.

You can take it or leave it. Mr. Friedman is better paid than I am. And better known. But he does not have a better track record.

And that makes all the difference.

Invading Iran, or even suggesting that an attack is a possibility, is madness and suicidal for the long-term interests of the United States. Such an invasion or attack would probably prove lethal to Israel.

Once again, I hold my views because I am an independent analyst, not because I am a supporter of Israel. But I am certain to a moral fault that my views are more in keeping with Israel’s long term interests than Mr. Friedman’s are. And, if you don’t believe me, just go back and read his columns from 20002-2003.

(CHICAGO)(July 11, 2007) World War I began with a flourish. There were bands and rallies and people thought the “Guns of August” would fall silent by Christmas. The war would be over. It dragged on for “four more years.”

We began our excursion in Iraq with similar delusions. The Bush administration expected to be down to fifty thousand troops by September, 2003. The war would be over, a “piece of cake” in one commentator’s colorful phrase. The “liberators” would simply pack up and go home.

I marched against the war and joined in demonstrations in New York and Washington in 2002 and early 2003. Chicago prevented antiwar marches until later in the conflict. I honestly never believed we would be so crazy as to invade.

And I ended up in Baghdad. Where I made George Bush’s unofficial enemies list because of my jaundiced analysis and reporting. As we used to say in the USAF ROTC PIO, “last to know, first to go.”

As a gubernatorial candidate in 2006 I ran a controversial ad across Illinois. The Chicago Tribune unleashed three reporters to check public files at my radio stations. I received scads of hate mail from extreme right-wing true believers. My crime? To say, “Mr. president, bring home our heroes.” Bush still was not listening to me and, as I told the right wing nutcakes, they could listen to me in the primary or listen to the Democrats in November. Maybe they are listening now.

Or maybe I am developing a complex, like the man in the Verizon Wireless commercials who constantly says “Can you hear me now.” Is anyone listening? What I have to say about the Middle East is usually unpleasant, to my friends and foes alike, because I call ‘em as I see ‘em and I have a record of seeing ‘em pretty clearly.

But this column is not a comprehensive analysis of the quagmire. The war has become to complex and contradictory. I start this series, however, with a “little snapper,” a clear cut view of a “desert delusion” that is rapidly gripping Congress: the “no combat role” fallback position for week-kneed politicians.

First, let me start with a brief statement. The war has indeed imposed hardship on our military. It has imposed horrible hardship, and the ultimate hardship on some families. For these brave patriots we must be eternally grateful, although I fear we are unworthy of their dedication and commitment to our Constitution. I also know the public has a short memory.

But it is not the troops who are losing faith; it is the politicians. On the ground, in the desert, you can understand just how fragile a situation we have created. And how difficult it is to extricate ourselves. No, the problem is not with the military. The problem is with our political leaders.

Politicians, of course, are wonderful at concocting solutions they hope will please everyone. Republicans are afraid to anger the president, and simultaneously afraid to incur the wrath of voters next year. Solution? Presto!

Simply pass law ending the “combat role” for our troops.

I am here to tell my future colleagues Senators Susan Collins and Ben Nelson that they are peddling a hopeless mirage.

To suggest our troops will no longer engage in “combat” (horrors!) and merely engage in “fighting terrorism” is sheer nonsense. That we will limit ourselves to “border security” and “training.” How wonderful.

But what if the enemy does not agree?

Because the enemy is not going to agree.

It is sheer delusion to suggest you can sit in the middle of a war zone and not engage in combat, because you have passed a law ending combat. Why doesn’t the Congress pass a law outlawing the insurgency? Or whatever? Better still, why not pass a law mandating that Iraqis become responsible citizens and mandate that they resolve their difference peacefully? Now there’s a statute that would have overwhelming support. And little chance of success. (Anyone remember President Nixon’s law mandating a “War on Cancer?” The dreaded disease is still with us, 35 years later.)

No one has been more caustic and critical of George Bush and his failed policy in Iraq than I have. But as I will state in a forthcoming column, Bush-the-broken-clock is belatedly and unfortunately telling the correct time.

(CHICAGO)(July 11, 2007) Chicago-based U. S. Senate candidate, Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin will hold a news conference Wednesday, July 11th at 1:00 P.M. to announce that he has asked the U. S. Secretary of Defense to withdraw DOD support for the Kupcinet Purple Heart Cruise.

“This so-called ‘nonpartisan’ foundation has a token Republican on its cruise committee, and it is larded with antiwar Democrats. Dick Durbin, Barack Obama, Jan Schakowsky and other left-wing types,” Martin will charge, see http://www.kphf.us/cruise_committee.html.

“And instead of investigating and reporting this political perfidiousness and abuse of our wounded troops, WMAQ-TV, WBBM-TV and WLS-AM are supporting the Democrats’ extravaganza.

“I have been on battlefields around the world and I cannot imagine what it would be like to be seriously wounded. But if I were a wounded veteran I would be disgusted at being used by antiwar Democrats as a photo op to ‘show their support for the troops.’ I would spit on these politicians.

“When these liberals could have shown support for the troops last month, the Democrats voted ‘no.’ Now they want to use veterans as a backdrop to cover their own two-faced hostility to our military.

“Barry Obama wants to substitute ‘hope’ for bullets in our arsenal; Jan Schakowsky wants to reduce the U. S. Army to water pistols and pea shooters. And Dick Durbin called our men and women in uniform ‘Nazis.’ Hillary Clinton was in the White House when Bill let Osama Bin Laden slip through our hands.

“I appeal to Secretary Gates, to President Bush and to every honorable veterans' organization in America, to condemn this gross abuse of our wounded men and women by antiwar Democrats in Chicago. Write your representative in Congress; ask them to stop DOD from sponsoring this farce. Call WLS and protest.

“Kupcinet & Co. could have asked Republicans to join as sponsors. Speaker Dennis Hastert comes readily to mind. But they added a ‘fig leaf Republican;’ the rest of the ‘non-partisan committee’ is composed of liberal Democrats and union reps. Why?

“And the media? What have they reported about this obviously politically biased ‘cruise?’ Nothing. They are marching in lockstep with the antiwar Democrats. And TV executives wonder why their ‘news’ has no credibility with the public. WLS? How much time have they devoted to exposing this scandal? Probably none. Another embarrassment.

“It is obviously possible to be against the war in Iraq and support our fighting men and women. I fall into that category. But Durbin, Schakowsky and Obama want to denude our defenses and render America helpless. Our brave men and women in the armed forces, who believed in and trusted our institutions and our Constitution more than the political class, should not be exploited by liberal Democrats with the ‘support’ of DOD.

“Republicans and Democrats let our troops down when the politicians marched off to war in a manner reminiscent of levity at the start of World War I. Their children were not on the front lines. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of incompetence, mismanagement and duplicity in the way they handled Iraq.

“On this issue, at least, I agree with former Senator John Edwards; there are ‘two Americas;’ the loyal Americans in our military who trusted the judgment of our leaders. And the antiwar Democrats that helped create the conditions for the disaster in Iraq.”

And so, in preparing this column I began to gambol across the Internet seeking other examples of people frolicking in the media, and frolicking in the boudoir as well, and asking us to “respect their privacy.”

We have recently been subjected to a veritable avalanche of requests for privacy, from people who were speaking to the media and seeking publicity.

Sir Salman Rushdie, the only man to have triggered death warrants from Iranian ayatollahs as well as riots in Britain, announced that he had agreed to divorce his wife. The BBC reported “Mr. Rushdie’s spokeswoman Jin Auh said Rushdie ‘asks that the media respect his privacy.’”

Not to be outdone in the privacy derby, Mrs. Sir Salman Rushdie, who also uses her maiden name Padma Lakshmi, rushed to call the celebrity gossip column “Page Six” at the New York Post, and “(asked) that their privacy be respected…”

The entertainer Usher issued a press release last month-- asking that his “privacy be respected.” He’s having a baby before benefit of clergy (his first, his wife’s fourth).

And, in the episode that triggered these remarks. Mayor Villaraigosa’s new squeeze, a reporter for Telemundo, Mirthala Salinas issued her own statement, “confirming her relationship” and, of course, “hop(ing) that everyone can understand and respect my desire to maintain my privacy when it comes to personal relationships.”

Adding yet another, more obnoxious layer to Ms Salinas’ hypocrisy, she anchored the newscast on which she read the report of the mayor’s separation from his wife. Talk about pillow talk. Or if pillows could only talk.

Ms. Salinas sleeps with a married man, triggers a divorce and ends a 20-year marriage, and wants us to “respect [her] privacy” when it comes to her marriage-wrecking adventures? The word my dear woman is not “privacy” in English. Rather, the word is “chutzpah” in Yiddish. When you compromise the life of the mayor of the nation’s second largest city you are not engaged in “private” behavior. Likewise, in the culturally conservative California Latino community, adultery is not a minor matter. The mayor’s request to conduct his adultery “in private” is presumptuous and contemptuous. But then he’s Democrat.

I discovered there is even a web site: respectourprivacy.com.

Politicians, of course, are world class hypocrites when it comes to asking for privacy when they commit infamy. I am sure a little more digging would lead to a fatter column. But you get the point.

Who do these hypocrites think they are, asking for privacy though press agents and news releases? Often for their peccadilloes involving their “private parts?” It’s enough to make you respect Howard Stern’s vision of society.

Having been in the public arena for over forty years I am well aware there is no such thing as privacy when you seek publicity; there is no “private” right to commit acts against public morals or family morality. Unless, of course, you are President Bill Clinton and “did not have sexual relations with that woman.” You know the rest.

In a letter to Crist, Martin says the Florida courts are among the nation’s worst. Martin blames Judicial Qualifications Commission Executive Director Brooke Kennerly as a major impediment to meaningful judicial disciplinary reform.

Journalists from around the world are free to call in.

Martin has successfully filed disciplinary charges against more Florida judges than anyone else, including former Broward Circuit Judge Paul "Marko the Barbarian" Marko, two judges on the Fourth District court of Appeal in West Palm Beach, and judges in Miami-Dade and Citrus Counties. He has also been the catalyst for other disciplinary proceedings.

“For sixteen years Dale Ross and I circled each other like two summo wrestlers,” Martin will state. “Ross despised me for exposing corruption in the Broward County Courthouse in the early 1990’s. Ross tried to smear me when CBS News interviewed him in 1993 in connection with CBS’ ‘48 Hours,’ which featured a section on my public interest litigation ('See You In Court'). I won on appeal and Ross was reversed.

“In the end, I won. Ross resigned in disgrace.

“But the crooks are still among us in Florida courthouses. As recently as a few weeks ago I was the victim of retaliation by corrupt judges on the Fourth District Court of Appeal, who retaliated against me for filing charges against Korda and Ross.

“No meaningful reform can take place until we remove Brooke Kennerly as Executive Director of the Judicial Qualifications Commission. Under Kennerly the JQC has been a lapdog not a watchdog. The JQC is a disgrace.

“Particularly because trial judges are elected in Florida, cabals of lawyers and judges make ‘deals’ to parcel out judgeships among themselves, as the Colbath Crime Family did in Palm Beach County a few years ago.

“The state needs aggressive disciplinary measures. They have not been forthcoming.”

In addition to his media activities and court reform efforts, Martin is a candidate for the Republican nomination for U. S. Senator in the Illinois Republican Party primary.

NEWS CONFERENCE DETAILS:

WHO: Internet journalist/reformer/critic Andy Martin

WHERE: Telephone news conference:

Toll-free call-in number: (866) 295-5950

Participant code: 2090340#

WHEN: Wednesday, July 4, 2007 11:00 A.M.

WHAT: Andy Martin will announce that he has offered to help Florida Governor Charlie Crist “clean house in the Florida court system;” Martin takes credit for the resignation of two Broward County judges